[Air-L] LiveJournal, online communities, and rebellions

[Christine Moellenberndt]

Howdy list folks,

Lurking MA student here, but a few things have crossed my radar that i 
feel the need to poke at a bit:

1) re: Alexander and the search for articles: This research piqued my 
interest, since LJ is my fieldsite for my MA thesis.  Alexander, i'm not 
sure you're on the right track here, but granted i'm not fully following 
your hypothesis, and i don't read Russian :) But you're basing off two 
"huge scandals" in Russian sociology weren't discussed in the sociolog 
community.  i'm not sure that's enough to base on.  Communities wax and 
wane in popularity and use, (i see that this community is about seven 
years old) and it could be that as these scandals happen, people don't 
immediately think to turn to LJ for discussion anymore.  i think people 
join the communities in the hopes of having discussions or at least 
learning something new, but so many communities start to lose popularity 
and traffic that nothing happens and we just never un-join them.  i have 
several communities i'm a member of and never post to, mainly because 
there's just no traffic so i doubt i'd get any responses, and have been 
too lazy to unjoin.  There's also the "lurk factor" in these communities 
which is similar to us lurkers on mailing lists.

Now Facebook groups OTOH... THOSE i totally agree with where you're going :)

Just my 2cents as a longtime LJ user and shorttime LJ budding-scholar :) 
i'd be interested in your research however as the Russian side of LJ is 
becoming very fascinating for me (especially in wake of the 
FaceBook/Twitter integration scandal/rebellion/unpleasantness of just a 
few weeks ago)

2) re: Grassroots online rebellions. Oh my.  There have been so MANY, 
though i'm not sure they've all be documented :) They aren't just 
happening in "virtual worlds" though; in my archival LJ research i'm 
deep in the thick of currently, i have been documenting several 
rebellions of users on LJ when LJ's parent company made changes the 
users weren't too satisfied with.  i'd be happy to go into detail with 
the OP offlist if warranted, though as i said none of this is published 
but observed.

Anyways, just my 2 cents in whatever currency you choose... now i go 
back under my lurkrock :)

-Christine
MA student (soon-to-be candidate as soon as the paperwork clears)
San Jose State University